


Interstitia

by Sad Cowboy Malone (NobleMalone)



Series: Blood, Hatred, Money, and Rage [4]
Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Arthur Morgan's Broken Dick, Canon-Typical Gore, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Child Abuse, Childhood Sexual Abuse, Codependency, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Dubious Consent, Dutch continues to be just The Worst, Emotionally Repressed, Extremely Dubious Consent, F/M, Good Ol' Fashioned Old Timey Cowboy Mischief, Hurt No Comfort, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Opium, Original Character Death(s), Period Typical Attitudes, Period-Typical Homophobia, Period-Typical Sexism, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Canon, Recreational Drug Use, Sexual Abuse, Spoilers, Underage Drinking, Underage Smoking, Vomiting, brief mention of violence towards animals, chapter 6 spoilers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-27
Updated: 2019-03-13
Packaged: 2019-11-06 14:16:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17941280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NobleMalone/pseuds/Sad%20Cowboy%20Malone
Summary: Interstitia: the spaces in-between.





	1. A Solitary Vice

**Author's Note:**

> _Blood, Hatred, Money, and Rage_ can be read in any order; however, _Interstitia_ should be read after parts 1 through 3.  
> As always, mind the tags; all warnings from the previous fics apply.

_Little boy inside my chest_  
_Beat my heart just like a drum_  
_Tell him I'll never forget_  
_How it was when we were young_

 

* * *

 

 

Arthur’d been sixteen first time Dutch’d mentioned it; they’d been sprawled out on a beach in Tijuana, just the two of them naked as jay-birds and soaking in the Mexican sunshine. Hosea’d stayed behind that winter, up in California playing house with Bessie, and while Arthur’d been awful lonesome without him, the thrill of Dutch's new-found adoration had been easier to enjoy without him there.

 

It’d been so warm that afternoon that, lying in the sun with every inch of skin exposed and Dutch by his side, his body'd felt boundary-less, sinking into the soft sand and rising up into the air all at once. When he thinks of it now, that might’ve been the last time he’d felt so comfortably warm, so safe.

 

The crashing of the waves and Dutch's hand running gently through the tangled mess of his hair, unknotting knots and smoothing cowlicks, had set Arthur to dozing, an arm thrown over his eyes to block out the sun.

 

In that way, he’d felt more than he’d seen his cock begin to swell and stiffen, the way it did when he was comfortable and at ease and his mind was blessedly quiet – it did the same thing when he read with Dutch, sometimes, or when he woke in the morning to the smell of brewed coffee and frying bacon. He weren’t ashamed of it, not with Dutch, at least; it was just something that happened to young men, and Dutch had made it clear he weren’t offended by it.

 

Even so, Arthur’d blushed when Dutch had chuckled, the rolling motion of it jostling Arthur’s head where it’d been laid in his lap.

 

“Well, good morning, sunshine,” Dutch’d said, his voice so full of mirth Arthur had had to look, glancing between Dutch’s grin and his own erection, lying half-hard against his slender thigh – he hadn’t begun to fill out, then, had still been an awkward combination of string-bean skinny and soft with baby-fat that Dutch had delighted in pinching whenever he got the chance.

 

But he hadn’t pinched Arthur then, hadn’t grabbed a handful of Arthur’s ass the way he sometimes did when it was just the two of them – instead, his touch had been feather-light, just the tip of his trigger finger trailing up the underside of Arthur’s cock. It’d been ticklish in a way that’d made Arthur want to lean into it and squirm away all at once.

 

“This happens often, don’t it, son?” Dutch’d asked, as if he didn’t already known the answer. Arthur’d felt embarrassment alight like a sunburn on his cheeks.

 

“Y-yeah, sometimes.”

 

“And what do you do, when it gets like this?”

 

He hadn’t been able to find the words for it, then – Arthur’d always been stupid, but he’d felt particularly stupid at that moment, with Dutch's forefinger and thumb wrapped around his hardened cock, just under the head, still and tight as a noose knot.

 

 

They’d been naked together before, plenty of times, but that had been the first time Dutch had touched him that way, proper skin-on-skin, and the intensity of it had been searing; before, it’d always been through the rough denim of his trousers, Dutch rubbing him off or letting Arthur rut desperate and eager against his thigh. The feeling of it had left him tongue-tied and dumb, the heat of it burning like a fever in his brain at the same time it sent ice water shooting though his veins.

 

 

Arthur’s response had been to gesture lamely, and when Dutch had mimicked the motion, the glide of a loose fist up and then down, Arthur’d whimpered, high-pitched and boyishly crackled.

 

“Is this it, boy? This what you do to yourself?”

 

Dutch's rings had caught on the velvety skin of Arthur’s cock as he stroked, and Arthur’d turned his head, toes curling in the soft sand, and moaned into the man’s naked, hairy thigh, even has he nodded.

 

“And did Hosea tell you what happens to boys what abuse themselves this way? Who don’t get the proper assistance when it comes to their manly urges?”

 

Arthur’d known, had heard the stories – palsy, blindness, degeneration of moral character. He’d only really worried about the first two.

 

“Can’t have that happening to my boy, can I? Not after I worked so hard, sacrificed so much to raise you up, gave you everything. Ain’t it only right I give you this, too?”

 

Dutch’s voice had been like melted butter as he’d stroked Arthur with a practiced ease, twisting his wrist in a way that had Arthur shouting as he’d spilled his release, hot and pulsing and ripping through him like a shotgun slug, into the sand.

 

 

He’d laid there for a moment afterward, fingers still dug into the meat of Dutch’s thigh, catching breath he hadn’t released he’d lost and inhaling the musky, manly scent of Dutch’s arousal as he did. The man’s cock had been heavy and full between is legs, intimidating in its girth.

 

A strange spike of fear had driven through Arthur as Dutch had taken his hand – still smaller than Dutch’s own, back then – and wrapped it around his erection, guiding Arthur’s hand into stroking him in a way Arthur would become well-practiced at in years to come.

 

“You ever have this problem again, boy, you ever get so hard and hungry for it you just can’t help yourself, you come to me for it, understand? I’ll give you what you need.”

 

“Sure, Dutch.”

 

His hands had been clumsy and awkward then, the angle bad; Arthur’d still been lying at Dutch’d side, head pillowed on his thigh, so close he could’ve reached out and licked the head of Dutch’s cock, if he’d really wanted to. The way Dutch had moaned, low and rumbling like the growl of a grizzly, had made Arthur want to.

 

When Dutch’d come, spilling his seed in the sand, same as Arthur had, Arthur’d been hard again, achingly so – he’d been young and eager then, and seeing what he did to Dutch did things to him.

 

Dutch’s hand had been slick with his own spend as he’d stroked Arthur through a second orgasm, this one intensified by the feel of Dutch’s free hand cupping and massaging his balls, and the gentle, breathless way Dutch had coaxed him along – “C’mon, boy, give it up for me, you’re so good, such a good boy, Arthur.”

 

 

That day on the beach in Tijuana, with his head pillowed on Dutch’s thigh and their jism mingling in the sand, like a blood-pact but stronger, that day had changed things; It’d be more than ten years before Arthur even laid a hand on himself again, nevermind brought himself to orgasm, without Dutch’s watchful eye and careful guidance and soft, sweet subversion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lyrics from Barns Courtney's [_Little Boy_](https://youtu.be/3ceLmQNu3RU)
> 
> Solitary Vice was a slang term for masturbation in the 19th century, used in a condemnatory sense. I think the atmosphere around sexuality and masturbation at this time would have made the grooming of children for abuse easier, probably.
> 
> aaaaand here we are back on my bullshit?? jeepers
> 
> Interstitia will be updated in chapters, each one being a little vignette that falls in-between the events of the previous 3 fics in the series. Just some odds and ends that didn't make it into the larger story framework, and explorations of characters and relationships and the effect of abuse.
> 
> This chapter explores the slow escalation of abusers and how they slowly push boundaries and make excuses for their actions, grooming the people they seek to victimize.


	2. Poppy Tears

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this one has me real bummed out, fellas; make sure you're taking care of yourself and taking breaks if things ever get too heavy, ok??

_While you're orbiting, might I -_  
_Lick you sticky, sticky, sticky, sticky, sticky and sweet_  
_They're all turning a blind eye_  
_They're all turning a blind eye_

 

* * *

 

 

They’d spent the rest of the winter on Mexican beaches up and down the coast, living off the fruits of the previous summer’s labours. It hadn’t been glamorous, but they’d spent each night curled around one another, naked in the heat of it and sticky with sweat, the stars their only blanket; Arthur’d wanted to live in that sweet summer forever.

 

He still remembers, reminisces, sometimes, on how happy Dutch’d been back then, too; how he’d been so gentle and sweet as he’d rubbed his cock over the peach fuzz on Arthur’s chin, or how he’d chuckled at Arthur’s sparse, soft pubic hair – “A boy’s body with a man’s cock,” he’d remarked in a way that had made Arthur’s insides squirm with dark pride.

 

But of course it couldn’t’ve lasted forever; the days began to grow warmer and longer just as the money’d grown short, and they’d reluctantly packed up and headed north to collect Hosea from his own winter retreat.

 

 

They’d arrived in San Francisco nearly three weeks out from Arthur’s seventeenth birthday – there’d been a nippy chill in the air, still, the last vestiges of winter yet to be shed – but like most things, it’d been Dutch's idea to do what they had. Arthur’d felt like an unmoored sailboat, back then; pushed along towards some unknown destination by the strength of Dutch’s tempestuous gale. He still remembers how Dutch had wheedled them all into it.

 

“C’mon, Hosea, let the boy live a little,” Dutch’d pleaded on that way he only ever did when he already knew he’d won. “Arthur watched over me as if I were but a helpless babe, didn’t you, son?”

 

“Sure.”

 

“And for that, he deserves a reward for a job well done, wouldn’t you say, Hosea? Don’t let our son’s noble efforts go unrewarded!”

 

Hosea had sighed and rolled his eyes – he hadn’t even liked letting Arthur drink, back then, nevermind _this_. But Hosea was wise, knew when to pick his battles. Arthur’d always admired him for that.

 

“Fine,” he’d sighed, at the same time an indulgent grin had tugged at his lips. “But if anything happens to him, the funeral arrangements are coming out of your pocket, Dutch.”

 

 

The opium den had been up a rickety set of old wooden stairs, above a Chinese laundry, and in spite of the burning incense the place had smelled acrid and sour like the taste of pussy; it’d been before Arthur learned that taste, before Dutch coaxed his head between a woman’s legs and the memory of the place surfaced like a body from a bog, but when he did, the two would be inextricably linked in his mind from then on.

 

It had been dim in the room, the only light provided by the tiny flames of the opium lamps and a few paper lanterns that cast the room in hues of red and orange. In the warm light they’d reclined on piles of plush pillows, Arthur shifting nervously under the curious gaze of the Chinese prostitutes as Dutch’d prepared the little sticky brown ball, stretching and pulling and heating it until it was gold as honey before sticking it in the end of the pipe and drawing in deep.

 

When Arthur’d gone to take that first pull of bitter smoke, Dutch’d held the long, ornate pipe for him, tenderly pressed the tip of it to Arthur’s bottom lip; as he’d inhaled, Dutch’d run a hand through his hair, paternal and fond, watching him through heavy-lidded eyes.

 

“Easy, boy,” Hosea had warned, a gentle hand rubbing comforting circles between his shoulder blades. “Don’t overdo it, now; she’s a tricky one. She’ll sneak up on you.”

 

 

Hosea hadn't been wrong – it’d hit Arthur all at once, like being bowled over by an ocean wave, intense and powerful and overwhelming, but warm and smooth and weightless. If he hadn’t’ve been lying down, he might have fallen down, with the way the drug had turned his bones to butter and had his body melting like chocolate into the cushions beneath him. It’d all felt so good, in that moment, everything a kaleidoscope of colour and sound and feeling; Hosea’s coughing laugh like the sound of the wind through tall prairie grass as he’d exhaled his own lungful of smoke, Dutch’s hand in his hair the heat of a fire on a cold mountain morning, comforting and enticing.

 

Fear had been absent, that evening in the opium den, even as Arthur’s limbs had become sandbag heavy and he’d felt his consciousness floating somewhere just above his body, as if he could have left it behind had he wanted to. Jealousy did not rear it’s head as he’d watched Dutch kiss one of the oriental girls, open-mouthed and sloppy, before yarding down the neckline of her dress to mouth at her small, pubescent breasts. Anxiety had not gripped him when Dutch had stalked towards him on hands and knees, like a cougar prepared to pounce, and pressed that same mouth to his own, covered him in those same wet kisses from his neck to his navel. Even shame, hot and heavy and ever-present, had been missing then, as Dutch had wrapped his lips around Arthur’s hard cock for the first time – Hosea’d been not four feet away as Dutch had brought Arthur off in his mouth and spit his spend into a fancy pocket square; still, shame had not shown.

 

Arthur remembers how, when Dutch had kissed him afterwards, there’d been a strange look on Hosea’s face, one he’d never learned to read. He hadn’t bothered to think about it much in that moment anyway, not when Dutch was kissing him in a way that felt like drowning and had the sea-salt taste of his own release exploding on his tongue like a firecracker.

 

 

Arthur’d spent much of the next day in bed, curled up under the heavy quilt Bessie'd loaned him, sweat-soaked and freezing as his stomach had rolled angrily and his muscles tensed and spasmed as if they’d been touched to hot iron. When Bessie’d come to check on him, kindly woman that she was, he’d felt so sick and cranky he’d hissed and spit like a wet cat until she’d gone. They’d all left him alone for the rest of the day, after that.

 

Even so, the walls of Bessie’s Italian-style rowhouse had been thin, and Arthur remembers the conversation he’d heard through them, had known it was one he wasn’t supposed to hear. Had wished he hadn’t heard it.

 

“Dutch, whatever’s goin' on with you and that boy, it needs to stop. It ain’t right,” Hosea’d said – his voice had been quiet but stern in the way it got when he weren’t about to take no guff. It was a voice Arthur’d been more than familiar with, at the time.

 

Dutch’s voice, the roaring anger like the pounding of hurricane rain, had been familiar, too.

 

“He is my son, too, Hosea! You think I don’t know what’s best for _my_ son?”

 

“Now, Dutch, I ain’t sayin' –“

 

“What you are saying, my dearest friend,” Dutch had interrupted, each word spoken slow and annunciated with clear, ferocious precision, “is that how I am raising up _our_ boy is not up to whatever arbitrary standards you might think yourself aligned to.

“You don’t like how I’m raising him? Fine, take him, go off on your own, see how long the two of you last, you taking care of him all on your lonesome.

“But I seem to recall it being I who took _you_ in – a fool and a charlatan what couldn’t even keep himself fed, nevermind the hungry mouth of a growing boy.”

 

There’d been a long, tense silence, the pressure of which had threatened to wring tears from Arthur’s eyes as he’d laid there listening. Dutch and Hosea had fought only rarely back then, and rarer still was it they fought because of Arthur – if Hosea’d gone through with it, had up and left that night, it’d’ve been all Arthur’s fault. The thought was more than he could bare.

 

Arthur must not have heard Hosea’s quiet, cowed response over the sound of his own guilty tears; the next voice he heard was again Dutch’s, gentler this time in a way Arthur knew meant that whatever argument they’d been having, Dutch’d won.

 

“We are a _family_ , Hosea, and we have got nothing but one-another in this god-forsaken world. If we’re gunna make it through this, if we’re gunna raise this boy up right, I need you to have a little faith in me, sometimes. I need you to have my back, same as I have yours. Can you do that for me, Hosea?”

 

A long pause, and then; “Sure, Dutch.”

 

 

 

Later that evening, Hosea had brought Arthur a bowl of watered-down barley soup Bessie’d made and a damp cloth to wipe the stale sweat from his brow. He’d gently laved the cloth over Arthur’s face in a way that brought back vague sense-memories of a time in Arthur’s life before Dutch and Hosea, but violent all the same; he’d let Arthur feed himself, though, had taken to massaging the bumps of Arthur’s spine with the flat of his hand as he ate.

 

“Arthur,” Hosea’d begun, in that soft but no-nonsense way that told Arthur he’d been deep in thought, and it’d made Arthur’s heart drop into his stomach.

 

In that moment, he’d been afraid – what if Hosea had decided to leave, after all? What if he was taking Arthur with him? What if he _wasn’t_? What if Hosea was upset with him, for making Dutch angry, for making them fight, all on his account?

 

“Mhmm?” he’d grunted hesitantly, teeth gritted against the fear crawling up his throat; Didn’t want to let Hosea see the boyish fright he’d felt in that moment, wanted to be the man Hosea always said he was becoming.

 

“You’re grown now, and I know you ain’t got the mind to listen to an old fool like me,” Hosea’d said. “But I think it might be wise not to be goin’ out to – to places, with, with just you and Dutch, just the two of you. It’s not… safe. You need someone to watch your back.

“You understand, son?”

 

“Sure,” Arthur’d lied. He hadn’t understood what Hosea’d meant, not back then  – Dutch had watched his back just fine, he'd thought – but the relief of knowing he would say, that they’d all be together, had let him breathe easy then.

 

Hosea had put a hand on his shoulder, had looked at Arthur for a long moment with that same strange look in his eyes – something like grief, maybe, or fear.

 

“Good man.”

 

 

The next day, when Arthur’d mostly recovered from feeling febrile and dope-sick, they’d gone to a portrait studio in the city, just the three of them. Dutch had laughed – “The strangest family photo you’d ever seen, two outlaws and their mangy-dog son!” – after the photo’d been taken, and Arthur had felt an implacable sense of foreboding that’d he’d brushed away as the last remnants of opium come-down.

 

The photo, the three of them standing sullen and still in ghostly shades of black and grey, had been his seventeenth birthday gift, and he’d cherished that photo like a precious thing, a constant reminder of all the things that made him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me: what a nice photo of arthur and his two dads  
> also me: what if i.......................... make it bad
> 
> explored here are some reasons why a guardian might fail to protect a child from abuse, as well as how one might blame themselves for their abuse and the turmoil it causes. 
> 
> Wikipedia tells me Poppy Tears are another name for opium so ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ I also found it really hard to find anything really detailed online about mid/late 19th century opium dens and what they were actually like but maybe i'm bad at google. arthur gets dope sick 'cuz like with alcohol, opiates come with their own kinds of hang-overs; i imagine dutch and hosea have more experience and are thus less affected.  
> Hosea doesn't stop Dutch in the act, not to be cruel or because he's in on it, but because that's how drugs be; when you're high you might permit things you otherwise wouldn't. hopefully that comes across. :<
> 
> lastly, lyrics are from The Decemberist's [_Tripping Along_](https://youtu.be/-d1XxNTwibI)


	3. Prairie Dogs

_Tie those horses to the post outside_  
_And let those glass doors open wide_  
_And in their surface_  
_See two young savage things_  
_Barely worth remembering_

 

* * *

 

 

Arthur’d always spent a lot of time with John, but the summer after Arthur’s nineteenth birthday, they’d grown thicker than thieves under the unforgiving New Austin sun; it’d felt a little like playing nursemaid, sure, but Arthur’d relished the opportunity to lord his position as a man among men over the younger boy’s head. They had gotten along so well, back then – had goaded and antagonized one another near constantly, but in a way that spoke of brotherly love and a shared sense of pragmatism unusual for their age.

 

They’d spent their time doing the things boys their age and in their situation did, which was a whole lot of shit boys shouldn’t be doing –  Arthur’d admit that now, but it’d all been in good fun, back then. Racing horses hard and fast across the flat plains ‘til their checks burned and blistered in the sun; sneaking away from chores to go eat ripe berries off brambly bushes, coming back sticky-fingered and covered in thorn-scrapes; slinking into barns before sun-up to milk a farmer’s heifer and drink the raw, warm milk, whooping and hollering and laughing like fools as they ran from the farmer and his shotgun. More than once, they’d stolen liquor from the men of the gang and spent the afternoon day-drunk and sloppy ‘til they caught the handle of Mrs Grimshaw's wooden spoon across their knuckles.

 

Arthur had taught John how to clean and load a rifle that summer and had taken him out to shoot .22s at squirrels and prairie dogs any chance they got, staying out ‘til dark and chain-smoking cigarettes as the stars slowly materialized in the big prairie sky. Lying head-to-head in the scrub grass on those warm nights when they’d still had boyish hope in their hearts, they’d stared up into the darkness of the sky and dreamed aloud until sleep called them back to camp for the night.

 

“When I’m rich, I’m gunna buy me a ranch,” John had said, once, cigarette hanging lazy from his lips. “Gunna get me a wife what’ll cook and clean for me, have a shitload of kids and a hundred head’a Texas Longhorn and I’ll just ride all day and eat meat every night and ain’t no one’ll bother me none.”

 

'And I won’t have to be scared no more,' John hadn’t said, but Arthur’d still heard it in his voice, naïve and optimistic. Had wanted that, too, to be free from fear, wanted it for him and John both – had known it weren’t never gunna be true for either of them.

 

“Sure,” Arthur’d replied anyway, with a lopsided grin. “And I’m gunna put on a monkey suit and grease my hair and go play high-stakes poker on a fancy riverboat with a bunch'a big wig oil men!”

 

John’d punched him hard in the gut for that one, and they’d wrestled in the dirt like overgrown pups 'til they were scraped up on the rocks and caked with mud.

 

 

 

It weren’t until dinner-time the day after that they’d caught shit for being as filthy as they were – when Mrs Grimshaw had seen the dirt under their nails and Arthur’s scabby elbow and John’s split lip, she’d shriek like a wild boar and hollered them all the way out of camp, down to the river to clean off.

 

 

“How deep is it?” John had asked in his scratchy gramophone voice nearly as soon as they’d reached the riverbank; he’d still been deathly scared of the water back then, a fear he’d never really outgrown. When Arthur had tried to teach the boy to swim the summer before, he’d clung to Arthur like a baby possum and cried 'til Arthur’s heart had ached too much to continue. He hadn’t tried to make John swim, after that.

 

“Shit, John, I dunno. I ain’t even got in yet, stupid,” Arthur’d replied gruffly. “Now get'cher clothes off and get in; sooner we’re clean, sooner we can eat.”

 

“My clothes is dirty, too,” John had grumbled petulantly, even as he’d pulled his too-big, hand-me-down shirt over his head.

 

They’d stripped naked and had found the cool water to be a soothing relief from the hot, dry desert air – John’d even waded in nearly up to his knees before he’d squatted down to wash, quick and efficient.

 

Arthur had been nearly up to his waist, trying to gingerly introduce his balls to the cold water in a way that wouldn’t be like getting kicked in them, when John’d said, equal parts awed and amused;

 

“Jesus, you’re hairy for a lady!”

 

Arthur didn’t respond, as used to John’s childish goading as he’d been. Feeding into it always just made him worse; Arthur’d just smiled to himself, began making a plan to steal John’s clothes and have him walk back to camp in the buff, when –

 

 “Ain't no man even gunna wanna fuck you from behind, lookin' like that, Ms Morgan!”

 

Arthur’s heart became a cold, dead fish, slimy and sickening in his chest. He hadn’t felt angry, or scared, or even upset just then; just felt his ragged nails biting into his own thighs, where’d they’d left angry red lines like whip-lashes in their wake. Later, when Dutch would ask him about the clawmarks as he kissed his way up from Arthur’s knee, Arthur would lie.

 

 

They’d finished washing in tense, uncertain silence, and as they’d begun the walk back to camp, Arthur’d lit them both cigarettes in hopes of avoiding conversation.

 

It hadn’t worked.

 

“What happened to your back?”

 

Arthur’d known what John had meant immediately, what he’d seen. Not just the belt-buckle scars, like a range of low-lying mountains scattered just above the crack of his ass, but the fresh, thin welts from a set of coach reins – the consequence of their early-morning milk run – and the purple-red suckling bite-marks Dutch had left on the cheeks of his ass as he’d fucked Arthur with his fingers afterward.

 

“I dunno what you mean,” Arthur’d grunted, lungs tight with cigarette smoke and resentment.

 

“Your back's all busted up somethin' awful, looks like –“

 

“I _said_ , 'I don’t know what you mean,' John. Now shut up, before I bust _you_ up something awful.”

 

“Alright, fine, I was just ask – “

 

He’d interrupted John by slapping him hard on the side of the head.

 

“Ow! Fuck, Morgan, that hurt!”

 

“Don’t cuss.”

 

John’d held Arthur’s secret in the chambers of his prematurely hardened heart for near on a week before he’d brought it up again, late one night when they both should’ve been asleep. Had told the darkness then all the things Arthur hadn’t even had the words to explain, the things Arthur had never been able to face – had waded deep into the black waters that Arthur had felt himself drowning in, back then, as if he could have saved Arthur from the relentless riptide of things boys should never have to face.

 

If only Arthur had been able to see he’d been drowning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lyrics from the Mountain Goats's [_Damn These Vampires_](https://youtu.be/dRTqDG9Mo18)
> 
>  
> 
> scream with me on [tumblr](https://assless-chapstick.tumblr.com/)


	4. Home, Heart, Home

_I helped you open out your wings_  
_Your legs, and many other things_  
_Didn't I?_  
  
_Am I the greatest bastard that you know?_  
_The only one who let you go?_  
_The one you hurt so much you cannot bear?_

 

* * *

 

Perhaps, in the way John had sought to save Arthur from drowning, Eliza had simply been looking for someone to drown with; someone already doomed, to whom she could cling like a shipwrecked sailor struggling to stay afloat, until both she and her saviour were dragged under by the inevitable weight of it all.

 

Maybe that was what had made him love her in the raw, exquisite, painful way he had – maybe he’d just been afraid of drowning alone. After all, he’d never intended to end up in her life, her home, her bed. It’d just… _happened_ , the same way most things just seemed to happen to him. As if he were but a feather in the breeze, blown about by luck and bad decisions.

 

 

He’d spent an afternoon at a little café in Resilience, closed the place down waiting for Dutch to come and collect him, and when the sun had gone down and Dutch still hadn’t turned up, he hadn’t known what to do with himself. It’d been raining cats and dogs that evening – it’d only seemed right to walk her home, his jacket pulled up over her head to shield her pretty auburn hair, done up as it’d been.

 

When he’d asked her what had a pretty girl like her working her hands to the bone for a pittance, she’d been honest, and she hadn’t meant it to be, but it’d been brutal.

 

“My mama’s brother, my uncle – he moved in after my daddy died and the mine dried up. Six years… six years of him doin' what he done to me was more than enough,” she’d said, her voice so soft and tender as to be nearly drowned by the sound of the storm. “I figured if I ran out and died of starvation, it’d still be better than one more day of his hands where they didn’t belong.”

 

Her honesty had stuck like a stone in Arthur’s throat, and he’d desperately wished to be sick just to be rid of it, had wanted to hate her for – for what? For her honesty, her bravery, her freedom? Whatever it’d been, it hadn’t mattered; he couldn’t bring himself to hate her, not when she’d looked at him so sad and lonesome like the echo of his own voice in a canyon.

 

He hadn’t been able to bring himself to say 'no' when she’d invited him inside.

 

Hadn’t been able to say 'no' when she’d offered him a glass of gutrot gin, either, had accepted it with a trembling hand and swallowed it down all at once, as if the burn of it in his belly could’ve chased away the cold steel chill crawling up his spine. Hadn’t been able to say it when she’d reached out to unbutton his soaked shirt and pushed it from his shoulders and let it fall to the floor with a wet, dead-fish slap, and hadn’t said it when she’d lifted her own dress up and off and stood naked before him, brutal and bare and honest.

 

Even when she’d taken his big hand in her own and pressed it against her soft breast, the nipple a hard peak beneath his palm, the stone in his throat hadn’t budged, trapped by fear and loathing and maybe even something like sympathy. Back then, he hadn’t realized that maybe Eliza’d been driven to it, the way Arthur’d always felt driven to Dutch; maybe they’d just been two poisoned people what couldn’t help but continue to drink, seeking that final fatal dose rather than waiting for the first dose to kill them slow.

 

It’d been that night, that first and only time when she’d brought him inside her and wrapped her legs around his waist as if she’d meant to keep him there, silently begging him to _stay_ , that their son had been conceived – the insane alchemy of two broken people making something whole and pure and good out of nothing but pain passed on like a cursed family heirloom.

 

 

Afterwards, it had taken another day and a half before Dutch’d come to collect him, and when he had, Arthur didn’t tell him about Eliza. Kept her a secret, the way he had Mary; something that was just his, like a nip of whiskey in a hidden flask, burning and painful but all his own.

 

 

 

The pain of losing them, Eliza and Isaac both, he’d kept that a secret, too. Arthur’d always figured he’d lose them, one way or another, but he’d never expected it’d be so quick and so cruel, and it’d eaten up a part of him; whatever last, lingering part of him that had been able to hold on to hope had been consumed that day, when he’d learned his boy had died.

 

Guilt and grief and an unspeakable longing to just stay with them, _be_ with them had kept him away from the gang for three long weeks, longer than he’d ever been away before; even when he had returned, it’d been more out of obligation and a misplaced sense of purpose.

 

He spent that first week after just trying to find the men what’d done it, starting at the seediest, most piss-soaked saloon and working his way out from there 'til he’d crossed the county three times over searching. Whatever he’d been seeking then – vengeance or something more absolute – he hadn’t found it; by the time Arthur’d caught the tail end of their trail, they’d been long gone, a wisp of gunsmoke on the breeze.

 

After that, he’d started drinking, and for near on two weeks he didn’t stop, did nearly nothing _but_ drink and smoke and fight and vomit hot yellow bile as if he could purge the pain that way, wet and angry and burning.

 

It’s lucky he’d been so drunk then, he barely remembers any of it at all; if he remembered, he might not be able to live with himself now, knowing how hard he’d tried to die back then.

 

What Arthur does remember is waking up in a jail cell in the sheriff’s office. They’d only stuck him in there to dry out a little, and the sheriff had marched Arthur out first thing in the morning; Arthur hadn’t been hungover then, but still drunk from the night before, and he remembers how his mouth had been gritty with mud and had tasted like blood and bile and bourbon.

 

He’d been sick on the street as soon as the morning light had hit his eyes, doubled over and spilling his guts in the mud 'til he was dry heaving, face red and eyes watering as his stomach had tried to turn itself inside out. As if, somehow, it’d known before Arthur did what was coming next, the one inevitable path his life always seemed to take.

 

The sheriff had been a kindly man, an older gentleman with a big white handlebar mustache, and his intentions had been good, but the gentle hand he’d laid between Arthur’s shoulder blades was little comfort; It’d only made Arthur feel sicker.

 

“Go home, son,” the man had said when he’d helped Arthur to his feet. “Whatever you’re tryin’a find, it ain’t here, and whatever you’re runnin’ from can’t be worse than what you been doin’ to yourself here.”

 

“You don’t know that,” Arthur’d slurred. He’d felt like a boy, misunderstood and defiant.

 

“Maybe. But I know you probably got a family, or folks what depends on you, and you ain’t doin' them no favours ruining yourself like this.

“You got people, son. Go to them. Go _home_.”

 

Arthur hadn’t had anywhere else to go, then. So he’d gone.

 

 

When he’d returned to camp Arthur’d been mostly sober, and that in itself hadn’t helped the situation much; he’d felt the unmistakable, cutting feeling of fear behind his breastbone, and he’d longed for a hit of laudanum or a shot of strong whiskey, anything to dull the sharp knife-blade of dread or slow the jack-rabbit pounding of his poor heart.

 

The feeling hadn’t gone away when Dutch hadn’t hit him, but instead pulled him into a smothering hug – Arthur hadn’t been able to understand why, wrapped safe in Dutch’s loving arms, head tucked into the familiar crook of his neck, the caged bird of his heart had continued to flutter and shriek, then.

 

Maybe that was just what being loved felt like.

 

“Where did you go, son?” Dutch’d asked, holding Arthur’s face in his hands as if to make sure he’d been real, not some ghostly hallucination of a maddened mind. “I – _we_ were all so worried for you.”

 

“I – I just… I just been so _stupid_ , Dutch.” Arthur’d been too sober to cry then, had felt like a dry husk, frail and crumbling; it must’ve been pitifully obvious, how bereft he’d been, because that’d been all the explanation Dutch had needed.

 

“Well, you’re here now,” he’d said. “That’s what matters.”

 

 

They’d used Arthur’s return as an excuse to celebrate, same as they used most happy occasions. Had let the liquor flow and the fire burn late into the night, and Dutch had let his hands wander, sliding up the back of Arthur’s shirt to dance familiar fingers across the fretboard scars of his back before they’d even made it to the privacy of Dutch’s tent.

 

After weeks away, Arthur’d been tight and tense and it’d hurt when Dutch had pushed eagerly into him – Arthur’d supposed he’d earned that bit of pain, having done what he did, having nearly run off for good. The ache of it, of Dutch’s thick, fat, familiar cock sliding home, would last near on three days after he spilled his seed deep inside Arthur’s ass that night.

 

Even as Dutch had cooed soft, comforting words in his ear – “My boy, my good boy, you came back, you always come back, good boy,” – it’d hurt, a burning ache that dug deep into the soft, sad parts of him. For all the love that’d been there, it’d hurt like a punishment, and Arthur’d never really been able to understand why being loved by Dutch felt so much like fear.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me: ouch oof finally i learn the truth of eliza and it hurts me  
> also me: what if i just............... make it worse
> 
> and i finished chapter 6 :(
> 
> This chapter explores the maladaptive and retriggering behaviour some abuse survivors can develop without proper help and support for their trauma, and how survivors can sometimes unwittingly harm themselves and others :<
> 
> Lyrics from Damien Rice's [The Greatest Bastard](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBmWVrAI9r0).
> 
> listen to me cry in cowboy on [tumblr](https://assless-chapstick.tumblr.com/).


	5. The Stag

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Be aware; this chapter contains mentions of suicide.

_So I pray to hands, and I pray to needs_  
_And I pray to blades of grass to find forgiveness in the weeds_  
_But as for health, I just never did believe_  
_So I never prayed myself_  
_Except to those that prayed for me_

 

* * *

 

 

Arthur had learned not to question Dutch more through absorption than through any real, pointed lesson, up until that day at lake up near Mont Régal. Had seen the sneering bitterness and biting barbs that came from Dutch, like pus oozing from an open wound, when Susan or Hosea or Colm, back when he’d run with them, had had the nerve to say something that didn’t sound like a 'sure, Dutch.’

 

But that day, up at the lake near Mont Régal, he’d learned it outright, the same way he’d learned every lesson Dutch’d ever deigned to impart on him; absorbed through his weak and foolish flesh the way Dutch always told him his mind couldn’t.

 

 

 

They’d been fighting over little Angie Abrams, he remembers. She’d been slight and fair and no more than sixteen, with gap teeth and freshly budded breasts that reminded Arthur, somehow, of sticky honey and blossoming poppy flowers. Looking at her had put such fear in him he’d felt mad with it, had wanted to put his fist through her pretty little face and shatter her skull like glass to be rid of the sick knot of something she put in his stomach.

 

Hadn’t. Just got angry, instead.

 

“She can’t come with us, Dutch!” He’d shouted; the wildfire anger in his own voice had scared him then, too, but hadn’t stopped him. “She got people not ten miles from Chicago, we can drop her there – She can’t come with us!”

 

“Chicago?” Dutch had said, forming the word as if it were foreign and disgusting to him. “Drop her in _Chicago_ , boy? With her ‘people?' So they can, what exactly?

“Beat her, abuse her, _rape_ her, Arthur? Rent her out like a half-cent whore as soon as times get tough, kill her when they get tougher? That’s what you want for her, son?”

 

“Better than the hell it’d be for her to roll with us! You know the shit we get up to, Dutch; She’s just a _kid_. We take her with us, we as good as killed her ourselves.”

 

Dutch had raised his hands in a placating gesture and sighed like a put-upon parent arguing with a petulant child.

“Now, Arthur,” he’d said, in the soft negotiators voice that was no less threatening than his booming yell, resting a gentle hand on Arthur’s shoulder. “I know you think you know what’s best for the young lady, but really, I must insist –“

 

Arthur’d felt like a cornered dog then, hackles raised and teeth bared, pushed from barking to biting; had shrugged Dutch’s hand from his shoulder and pushed him away, shoved him just hard enough to get some room to breathe – he’d been breathless, suddenly, couldn’t seem to draw in air past his heart in his throat.

 

It’d been the first and only time he would touch Dutch out of anything other than naïve, boyish reverence or a sense of obligation so strong it felt like adoration.

 

When Dutch had reached for his sidearm, Arthur’d froze, and some broken, hidden part of him had realized, hysterical and frightened, that this’d been it. This was how he was gunna die. He’d always known, in that deep, black part of his heart, that Dutch would be the death of him, one way or another.

But Arthur’d always thought he’d be crushed under the weight of Dutch’s hot, suffocating love – never imagined it would end in cold blood.

 

The crack of hard steel against the side of his head, his jaw, as Dutch smacked him with the barrel of his revolver, had been little relief. Later, Hosea would tell him he was lucky the blow hadn’t broken the delicate bones of his face; it’d been funny, 'cause he hadn’t _felt_ lucky for it.

 

 He’d been bigger than Dutch, stronger, a beast in his own right for years at that point, but still, all he’d done was go to ground; curled up weak and small in the way Dutch always made him feel. Had lain there and taken it the way he so often seemed to with Dutch, and had gone away the way he sometimes did when Dutch fucked him sweet and gentle and close.

 

 

 

Dutch’d beat him half to death that evening, by the lake near Mont Régal; shaken his brain up so bad Arthur’d had trouble remembering anything of the next two weeks. Still, he remembers how Dutch’d struck him, first with the gun in his hand and then with a leftover plank of thick, hard wood; beat him until Arthur’d seen spots and coughed blood and had felt one of the teeth in the back of his mouth drop like rotten fruit from a dying tree into the bloody cavern of his mouth.

 

Remembers, too, how Dutch had leaned in close and run a hand through Arthur’s sweat-damp hair, pushed it from his bloody face, gentle and sweet as a mother might.

 

“You’re so _stupid_ , Arthur,” he’d said that evening as Arthur’d lain on the ground, wishing he could soak like blood into the soft soil beneath his cheek. “That’s why I do this, you know that, right? I wouldn’t have to, if you weren’t just so stupid, if you’d just learn to listen. If you’d just have a little _faith_.”

 

He’d left Arthur to lie there and think on the lesson, and Arthur had spent the whole long night on the soft shore of the lake; gazing out into those dark waters as bruises bloomed on his body like grave flowers and blood coagulated, thick and sticky, in the socket where his lost tooth had been. He hadn’t been able to bring himself to move, that night, had felt numb in his core like a forest burned black and dead from wildfire, ravaged and hopeless.

 

Lying by the lake near Mont Régal, he’d watched the sun rise from behind the mountain to light the sky up in pretty shades of pink and orange and bounce off the lake in sharp, shimmering beams. Watched a stag emerge from the forest, cast in gold in the dawn light, to drink, unaware or unconcerned with Arthur’s presence. Had breathed in the fresh morning air through a broken noise clogged with blood and tried to figure out the secret to that sunrise, to the stag’s serenity and it's easy, loping stride. Had searched for something, anything – any reason at all to go on. To rise again.

 

Hadn’t been able to find it, then, not until he’d heard John wake up; stoking the dying fire from the night before, and putting on a pot of shit coffee as he hummed to himself in that foolish, boyish way of his.

 

 

 

Little Angie Abrams had run with them for a good three weeks before she’d used one of Arthur’s revolvers to blow a hole right though her pretty little head, splattering her brains all over the clean white canvas of Dutch’s tent.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this after i finished chapter 6 because i..... had feelings........... strong feelings........... 
> 
> Lyrics from Danny Schmidt's [This Too Shall Pass](https://youtu.be/_WQIN9iCTUk).
> 
> my [tumblr](https://assless-chapstick.tumblr.com/) is where i go to cry about cowboys


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